Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders

Chapter 5

STRUCTURE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Laura Clise on Spend Like It Matters

Laura Clise is the CEO and founder of Intentionalist Inc., a Seattle-based online guide to intentional spending that supports small businesses and diverse local communities. She is a Main Street small business champion, LGBTQIA+ activist, and advocate for social change through sports.

As a college student in the late 1990s, Laura heard Judy Shepard speak about her son, Matthew, whose brutal murder was the highest-profile hate crime against LGBT people at the time. Laura recalls Judy’s challenge to the audience, to the effect, “If you want to live in a world where people are out at work, you come out so you live in that world.”

Several years later, Laura was concerned ...